Thursday, October 27, 2016

Out on the Sea….

A Day in the
Life: Wednesday, October 26, 2016

It is the time of year where I feel like I am floating along
in an open sea with no land behind me and no land in the horizon. This long pull to Thanksgiving often feels to
me like the longest time of the year.

6:15am: Up earlier
than usual in order to get to school for a parent meeting in the morning.

7am:

I am as ready as I am going to be, and I am
staggering to pack my lunch and get out the door. I decide to wrap up my breakfast sandwich and
banana and eat it on the road. I slam it
down in stop and go traffic.

7:45am:

I arrive to
school, drop my stuff off in my room and then go to my department chair’s room
for the meeting. The meeeting goes
well. Student is making progress through
a tough transition to high school, which is great! Student is in my support math enrichment
course twice a week in addition to regular math class with one of my
colleagues. The two together have really
helped!

8:15am:

1st
period planning. Time to put my
classroom back together from testing rows.
The pair’s desks work so much
better for peer collaboration. It is
tough when one set of classes tests,and then the others sit in rows. This year I have really gotten used to having
students sit together, work together, and talk about math together a majority
of the time. I finish working through the INB notes for today and then grade
the test review assignments turned in from the last two days.

9:30am:

2nd
Period Algebra 1. We are working through
the last segment in Unit 2. Unit 2 has
included Linear equations and
inequalities in all different ways in one and two variable, graphing, writing,
analyzing, and now in this last portion
as systems of two equations or inequalities. We have been in this unit for many weeks with
many different assessments, but the scaffolding allows a pacing that helps
students to process information more thoroughly. I love that the end of the unit is culminating
in combining all graphing and algebraic skills to study the meaning of 2 lines
as a system. The application problems
are, I feel like, one of the best tie-ins to life activities around them. We started systems today by estimating
intersection points

when
graphing 2 lines.

10:30am-12:35pm:

2nd
and 3rd period Accelerated Algebra.
We have started Unit 4 with Polynomials, which will lead to an emphasis
focus on Quadratic Functions. This is
one of my favorite units in algebra to
teach! We started with new vocab and concepts with
polynomials, and then started operating on polynomials under addition and
subtraction. I cannot wait for the next
couple of days with multiplication and area models. They are a little wary of the classifying of 1, 2, and 3 term polynomials and naming
under early degrees, but they will tackle it.

12:35-1:24pm:

Lunch and
Accelerated Algebra PLC meeting. Our
department chair was the to collaborate with us on planning a pre-assessment
and post-assessment for data collection for state testing. In our course, we finish the algebra in
March, and then our students study 4 units of Geometry for the remainder of the
year. This will give us more time to prepare our students for the
state exam. We discussed and planned strategies for
reviewing, and utilization of resources our principal has agreed to fund us with. She has been generous in purchasing a great
online system for EOC review. We are
also about to embark on teaching students factoring for the first time in their math lives (formally at least). We know this can be a big undertaking for
Algebra 1 students even at an advanced level at the onset, so we discussed
possible formative assessment strategies for them along the way to check for
understanding. Probably the best PLC meeting
for Accel Algebra this year!

1:30 – 2:27pm:

5th Period
Accel Algebra again with polynomials.
This time I heard a total “Oooohhhh” when I worked them into the reason
a constant polynomial had degree zero.
Weaning them off of the idea that a number is not always “just a
number’. That lightbulb energized me for
the rest of the work day.

2:32 – 3:30pm:

6th
period Algebra 1. I just acquired this
class along with my 5th period Accel Algebra as new classes within
the month. Yes, 2 new classes, 8 weeks
into the school year, and hard on the kids and myself. What I will say is that this stress was the
last straw for my health and led to the decision I made to resign after 1st
semester. Anyway, my 6th
period class was split from a class of 40 students my colleague had. They are a good group of kids, and they have
made so many strides with their progress as a smaller group, so it is a greatway to end each day

3:45-4pm:

One of my
Accel Algebra 1 colleagues stopped ask for advice on pacing of content leading
up to our quiz on Monday. Being in a
new unit in which students have not seen the content before requires more
“mini-PLC” conversations, but I like it.
I had missed having those
mini-meets as my former colleagues and I talked all the time about instruction;
to be fair, the layout of classrooms and teachers at my old school was more
conducive for this.

4:00-4:45pm:

Working at school to tie-up loose ends, send needed
emails, and work copy assignments for tomorrow.

5:30pm:
Dinner with my family – I love when the three of us get to have dinner
together; it is not often!

6:00-8:00pm:

Grading
tests taken by all students this week both Algebra 1 and Accel Algebra 2. I am absolutely exhausted, and do not want
that to affect the grading process, so I put them away for now.

8:00-8:30pm:

Finish
writing DITL blog for today. In re-reading this, I realize that my biggest
break today was for dinner: 30 minutes
with family. I am worn out with 2 more
action packed days ahead of me this week.
I realize quickly that this post
will have to go out tomorrow because I need to get to bed and get some
rest. As it is, I am

sleeping copious
on the weekends due to my health condition, and I am growing exhausted earlier
and earlier each week.

Reflection
Questions

1) Teacher make a lot
of decisions throughout the day.
Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming. When you think about today, what is a
decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of? What is one you are worried about?

I am proud of the fact that I stopped the work horse in
myself with grading the tests when I was too exhausted to give them the concentration
they need. I did not get all tests
graded by far, but some of them, and I can approach the other when I am fresh enough
to do so.

I actually had no concerning decision today. Every once in a while it is great to have a
day where you feel good about the work that was done. I am going to take it!

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and
lows. Share with us some of what that is like as a teacher. What
are you looking forward to? What
has been a challenge for you lately?

My challenge
lately is been keeping my stress under control as much as I can to keep my
health at a place where I can finish the semester with my students. My new school has a much bigger workload than
my previous school, and it is a load that my health will not handle at this
point in my life having Crohn’s disease.
What keeps me positive about my decision to go out of teaching is the opportunity
to rest and get well and take time to refresh my teaching spirit. I would like to think of this time period as
a “self-induced sabbatical”.

Once I am
well, and when I am well, I have plenty of technology avenues I want to
explore, teaching strategies I want to research and plan for, and classrooms
and teachers I would like to visit locally and nationally. This was probably one of the hardest
decisions in my teaching career, but I know it is time to take care of myself,
which will have its long-term benefits; I just have to be patient with the time
it takes to see the benefits. I hope to achieve remission once again and be
rested enough to teach again someday. I
know I will miss being in the classroom terribly.

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational
teaching is. As teachers we work to
build relationships with teachers and students.
Describe a relational moment you had with someone lately.

I really enjoyed the mini-PLC with my
Accel Algebra 1 colleague today. I really
felt like we

shared great ideas and worked together well to plan for
the next few days leading into the next

quiz.
We are both work horses by nature, and our rooms are not
close together, so we tend to get

caught up in our work a lot and not share as much as we could. I am glad today was different – he

is a great
teacher, and even though we have a similar amount of teaching
experience, I have still

learned so much from him this year.

4) Teachers are always working on
improving, and are often have specific goals for things to work on

Throughout the year. What have
you been doing to work on your goal? How
are you doing?

Unfortunately, because I am not well, my
goals have not accelerated as much this month as last.

I am still planning and executing instruction
and activities, but not as often as I would like.

To compromise, I have worked on increasing student
talking and questioning more so into

instructional delivery, since the time to plan peer activities has given way
to other tasks I must

prioritize with the time my health affords right now.
I am still going to push to do
more in the

next month with groups, and I hope I can accomplish a little bit more.

5)
What else happened this month that you want to share?

One of my former leagues and I are
planning to attend the Southern MTBOS
Tweet-Up in

Chattanooga, TN November 5th. We are both very excited to meet other math
peeps from around

our region. It is a
day trip only, but should provide a great amount of
resources to help with

planning activities when time is so limited now for me. There are a few of us meeting from the

southeast
region, and I know I will learn a lot from them.
I am glad that there are teacher work

daysthe following Monday and
Tuesday that will afford me the chance to still do this and not lose

1 comment:

I know that feeling of reorganizing the room for tests and then shifting it back. I eventually adapted by creating two versions of my tests (sometimes adjusting numbers, sometimes simply the order) though it helped that I'd taught the classes previously. Then I shared the room, so reorganizing happened anyway! You were busy here, and it blows my mind that you were given new classes to teach at this point. Definitely consider your health, and the long term.

I remember when I first started teaching, there was a time I had all new classes with disruptive students... I didn't even have health issues and it wore me down to the point where I had to cut out after the first reporting period. I wasn't contract yet, so resumed occasional work, but I feel burnout is a real thing; even now I'm taking a year off. Thanks for taking the time to blog.

Tara Daas - Mathematics Teacher

About Me

I have been a high school math teacher for Fulton County Schools in Atlanta, Ga for 12 years and have most recently stepped out of the classroom to take a break and tutor mathematics on a full-time basis. In my spare time (when that does actually happen), I am a cat lover who also loves to read, bike, and travel.